Girl with a Hat

This dates from 1918, when Modigliani had left wartime Paris for the south of France. His dealer had sent him to Nice, partly to sell work to wealthy visitors and partly for the sake of his health, which tuberculosis was steadily destroying. He was there with the young painter Jeanne Hebuterne, who was expecting their child, and many of the women he painted in these months wear the same calm, downcast look. The face is drawn out into a long oval, the neck lengthened, the eyes left as flat almond shapes with little detail. He kept to a narrow range of earth tones and warmed the plain background with a touch of red so the figure lifts away from it.